


Eidolon

by Aphoride



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Asexuality, Cigarettes, Community: HPFT, Depression, Eventual Happy Ending, F/F, F/M, Fame, Family Issues, Genderfluid Character, LGBTQ Character of Color, LGBTQ Female Character, M/M, Modelling, Multi, Quidditch, References to Drugs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-22
Updated: 2016-06-26
Packaged: 2018-06-03 17:04:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6618973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aphoride/pseuds/Aphoride
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All your idols are gilded; all your idols are false.</p><p>Or, Beauty doesn't last.</p><p>(A Next-Gen fic loosely based on the themes of Dorian Grey: beauty, obsession, love and lust, fame, and endless wondering about the fragility and gullibility of the human mind. Featuring Many Bad Life Choices - and Harry, who hasn't quite got over his Saviour Complex.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Yellow Cotton

Yellow Cotton  
  
Deep red, liquid ruby in the dim lighting, he watches how the light seems to sink into it, glittering and twinkling, refracted endlessly in the belly of the glass, as though a tiny flame sits at the heart of it, surging and flickering in an effort to keep itself alive; the last few beats of a soul nearly dead.  
  
It looks, he thinks, a lot like blood – thin and watered down, a handful of spices thrown in to cover the smell, metallic and sickly, in fragrance; the kind which sticks in your throat, making you cough and wheeze and sneeze, even as your stomach churns, because there is nothing which can hide that kind of smell, not really.  
  
Blood always wears through; it is a fact.  
  
(Really, though, he wonders about that one at times, because if it’s true, then shouldn’t he be brave and daring and wonderfully, excitingly heroic, running off to find evil wherever it hides and destroy it somehow, surviving only by the skin of his teeth and pure, unadulterated luck.  
  
He should be, by rights, but he’s not.  
  
That is also a fact, and it’s one which burns a little as he stares at the glass, because whatever else it is, it’s red – Gryffindor red, Weasley red, Potter red – and it reminds him of just how much he has to live up to, and just how badly he failed.  
  
Perhaps blood is a more accurate description – after all, these wounds have never truly healed.)  
  
He takes a sip, then a second, and puts the glass down, far too aware of Anatole’s gaze from the other side of the table, patient and concerned, just waiting, as he always is, for the problem to reveal itself.  
  
Sometimes he thinks Anatole knows him too well; then he remembers how simple things are when he doesn’t have to say anything, just let Anatole glance at him once and drag him out of the Centre to a dim, local restaurant, candles and windows the only things lighting it, where, once food has been ordered and wine (always Anatole’s choice; he is, apparently, a heathen when it comes to selecting wine and nothing has changed in nearly six years) brought to the table, poured liberally into two glasses, then he will feel better and he can find the words to talk.  
  
There’s not many people he’s happy to have met in his life, but dear god is he ever grateful for Anatole.  
  
Around them, the soft buzz of the restaurant is strangely soothing: a flurry of words, mixed Italian and French and German and English – a burst in Spanish occasionally, or a mouthful of Dutch – bouncing off his ears, so fast and quiet that it all fades into the background. Every now and then, he’ll hear a word he recognises, a phrase perhaps, and he’ll automatically focus on that, but it’s so easy to slip in and out of listening, so nice to not have to think for once.  
  
Bread arrives, and he hears Anatole thank the waiter in soft, darting French.  
  
“You know, I came here to get away from it all,” the words seem to fling themselves from his mouth, a tumble of them, as though if they don’t get out quick enough they’ll be crushed. Maybe they would have been.  
  
He takes a slice of bread – Italian ciabatta this week, it seems – and pushes the olive oil towards Anatole, sliding the small dish of curls of butter towards himself, knife already in hand.  
  
“And now,” he continues, a strain of bitterness, so familiar by now that it’s almost soothing, creeping up his throat. “Now it’s here. It’s fucking here, where it shouldn’t be, so there’s nowhere I can go to get away from it. From them.”  
  
Anatole doesn’t say anything, sipping at his glass of water, and studying him still with dark eyes, the shadows in the restaurant carving the bags under his eyes into hollows, blank spaces with only a faint speck of light to suggest otherwise. It’s good; makes it hard to read his expression, even though there’s no chance of finding anything remotely judgmental there.  
  
They each have their own demons, lonely scholars that they are, and so there isn’t really a need to scoff or laugh or roll their eyes at another’s problems.  
  
(He knows Anatole vanishes the bottles when he’s not looking, knows Anatole worries sometimes about just how much it is sometimes, and he knows that Anatole notices when he doesn’t eat all day because he’s had too much the night before, when he stays at home all day after A Name In Particular comes up in the newspapers or on the radio…  
  
He also knows that Anatole smokes too much, so much so he almost spends more time hanging out of his office window than actually working, and that there are rows of days where he can’t sleep at all – that he’s refused help, refused sleeping potions countless times because he’s too afraid it’ll just become another dependency, another addiction.  
  
He knows, and Anatole knows, and they work it out together well enough.  
  
After all, they’re both still alive, aren’t they?)  
  
He takes a second slice of ciabatta, spreading butter in slow, single movements, absently seeing but not seeing how the motions leave slender, yellow lines still on the blade, painting and repainting themselves after each stroke.  
  
“Everyone knows – everyone! – and of course they all have to mention it to me, don’t they? Not one of them thinks that maybe I don’t care, maybe it doesn’t matter to me – no, no, I get to hear the ‘congratulations’ too, the endless comments about how amazing he is, how incredible an achievement it is,” his tone is vicious, he knows, but he can’t bring himself to care – not yet. “As though I’ve done nothing except be related to him.  
  
“And then, of course, people go back to my fucking father and everything he did – as though I don’t know that as well! ‘Oh, but you have such an amazing family’ – yeah, like that’s true. If it was, I wouldn’t be here, would I?”  
  
There is silence at their table, punctuated only by the faint thud of his water glass as he sets it down again, and he heaves a sigh.  
  
“I know I’m not being entirely fair,” he admits, resting his head on a hand. “But they’re not being fair on me. What am I supposed to do when faced with that?”  
  
“It is ‘ard,” Anatole murmurs, and now he can see the sympathy in his expression, overshadowing the concern, and it almost makes him feel worse. “People do not think before they say these fings, and it ‘urts. They mean well, but it does not ‘elp.”  
  
Slowly, he chews another mouthful of ciabatta, tasting more butter than bread, and it slides on his tongue, ever-so-faintly salty and slick like oil.  
  
Their main courses have arrived before they talk about it again, the time in between absorbed by a quick debate about Anatole’s latest project: transliteration of curses. Hieroglyphics is one of his specialities, but something they’re both fascinated by, and the beginnings of the research coming out of it makes him more than a little envious.  
  
(His own work is nowhere near as glamorous as even that is, but he knows that truthfully he’d hate to do something which landed on the covers of newspapers, magazines and journals; which would mean people would recognise him – more so than they do already – and point at him, stare at him in the streets.  
  
He is perfectly happy with the acclaim without the fame; he’ll leave the latter to Anatole and others like him, who enjoy the novelty of living life in a spotlight, their name being known and their face stamped across parchment.  
  
Then again, he sees nothing novel in it, so perhaps it was the wrong phrase to use.)  
  
“The worst thing is,” he starts out of nowhere – Pharaoh Rameses II having long slipped from his mind. “He wrote to me – to tell me, you know, himself. So I didn’t have to find out from the newspaper or the radio or something. They’re having a party at home to celebrate – like they do for everyone – and he said… he said that I could go if I wanted to. That he’d like to see me there.”  
  
In that moment, he feels like a kid again: small and naïve and unsure of whether or not something was okay, too afraid of something to go for it without permission, without being told that he could do it, that perhaps he should and that there was no reason to be scared.  
  
“Do you want to go?” Anatole asks him, and it’s a simple question, nothing difficult about it – should be an easy answer, yes or no – but it stops him, and he finds himself locking his jaw rigid, fingers turning his fork over and over and over in his grip.  
  
“I don’t know,” he responds eventually, and he thinks he sounds about as lost as he feels. “Do you think I should?”

* * *

 _Dear Teddy,_  
  
_Don’t respond to this until Vic’s out of the room, yeah? Actually, don’t respond at all if you’re busy – it’s cool, it can wait._  
  
_You see, it’s about James. I know, I know, there’s nothing I can do about it – but it’s been six years, almost. Six years this July, at any rate. That’s a long time to be away, and a long time not to talk to any of us. When he said he wanted out, I didn’t think he was this serious – though he just meant getting away for a bit, keeping a low profile. Not, well, not running away and never coming back. It’s almost like he’s dead._  
  
_Well, no, it’s not. But you know what I mean._  
  
_This morning, when I told mum and dad, they were so excited for me – and then Lily had to ask if anyone was going to tell James, and then it all crashed, again. It’s a real pattern now, any time anything happens, good or bad – we’ll be dealing with it, until someone mentions him, and then it all goes to pot. Dad gets silent and tense, and mum threatens to burst into tears and pretends to be busy with something else – cleaning or washing or something – as though we can’t all see she’s upset._  
  
_It’s ridiculous now – none of us know how to contact him, not really, we don’t know where he is, or what he’s doing, even if he’s still alive, really. (Though I suspect if he’d died, we’d have heard something about the body being found, right? But that’s not really comforting in any way.)_  
  
_They’re throwing me a party to celebrate – ‘only family and friends’ mum said which means it’ll be at least a hundred people with our family – and mum wrote him an invitation and all (first time she’s done that in years, but I think it was still on her mind from Lily screwing up and dropping him into conversation), and when she realised she’d done it she just stared at it, blinking, for ages. Even dad didn’t know what to do._  
  
_It’s stupid, but I want my family to happy for me at that party, you know, for once, not mourning someone who’s made it so clear he doesn’t want to be part of our family, in whatever way. I dug the invitation out of the bin where dad put it (though someone should tell him his stupid ‘out of sight, out of mind’ philosophy doesn’t work), and I’m writing him a letter and sending it._  
  
_Maybe it’ll find him, who knows? Either way, it’s his last chance – after this, I don’t know why I should keep bothering. Clearly he doesn’t want to, after all._  
  
_Really, I hope he gets it and he shows up – if only because it’ll make mum and dad happy. They haven’t really been happy since he left, and it’s about time he lets us._  
  
_Sorry for dumping you on this, Ted, it’s not fair on you to get dragged into this, but Lily’d just take mum and dad’s side and there isn’t really anyone else to talk to since dad wants to keep it all hushed up. (As though the press don’t know already!)_  
  
_Albus S. P._  
  
_p.s. do you think he’s changed a lot? I just… I want to recognise him, you know? But I’m not sure if I will now._

* * *

On his shoulder, the strap of his rucksack is digging into his skin painfully, pressing hard onto the bone and making him wince every time it bounces on his back and hip in short, sharp, juddering movements. The weight pulls down, piling pressure on his knees and his back; his shoulders are going to hurt tomorrow, all across the base of his neck, and he almost wishes he could go back.  
  
Too late now, really.  
  
(If he could, he would. It’d be a great excuse why he didn’t – pain usually works as a reason, and this time it’s twofold, in a sense – and only Anatole would know it was an excuse, would perhaps guess the real reason why he bottled it. No one else would ever have to know he’d even considered actually going – or even that he’d been invited in the first place.  
  
It would stay a secret. Just another one between him and Albie, hidden from the rest of the world.  
  
Except… except that he has no idea why he didn’t just stay, in truth, other than the fact that the invitation was written in his mother’s handwriting, smudged ink and all, and that he thought perhaps six years is long enough.  
  
He’s supposed to be brave, he tells himself, and being brave means going home.)  
  
The streets are crowded at this time – the shops are all about to close, stalls folding themselves up and cauldrons hopping back into stores with clunking, clanging steps, while voices holler out last-minute prices, final deals for the day, and people, hurried and flustered, rush to and fro, bags of shopping swinging about on their arms. That hasn’t changed from country to country, at least, though the onslaught of English sounds strange, plain almost without something else thrown in on top.  
  
A woman’s bag, made of carpet, rough and thick, filled to the brim with bags and bags of owl pellets, smacks into his leg and he grits his teeth, ‘fuck’ resounding loudly in his head, and keeps going, ignoring her harassed ‘sorry!’. His knee is throbbing now, the ache only exacerbated, and when he ducks into the Leaky Cauldron he doesn’t think he’s ever been happier to see a low, wooden bench in his life.  
  
Sliding into the corner, propping his back on the chair beside him, he glances round the pub quickly. There aren’t that many people in there, strangely: a couple of blokes about his dad’s age at a table across the room, talking over a pair of pints; the inevitable regulars at the bar, empty glasses beside them; over by the door, the alley workers clocking off are starting to trickle in, gaggles forming as friends join in, heading up to the bar for a round, leaving cloak and bag with the others.  
  
(When the waitress – a girl about seventeen years old, who asks him what he wants in a bored drawl he could never hope to imitate – comes over, he orders a glass of red wine because he’s not quite ready to admit he’s back, colouring his words with a French accent light enough to escape comment, but enough to mark him out as Not English.  
  
He’s more relieved than he thought when she doesn’t seem to recognise him at all, merely jotting down his order with a nod, the little slip of paper soaring off to the bar where Hannah – Aunt Hannah, as she was in his childhood – is directing the taps to pour themselves with a clever twist of her wand.  
  
If he’s honest, he hadn’t thought not shaving that morning and wearing a hat and sunglasses would be enough, but he’s not about to complain.)  
  
It’s a loud, rowdy place as more and more people flood in, and it seems that he just slips under the radar – just another tourist come to take a stroll along the alley, gawk at the new buildings after the war, the memorial to commemorate the dead, and the new, soaring, green marble dome which covers the top of Gringotts. The damp from outside sticks in the air, making it close and humid, and when things start getting spilled, he decides to call it an evening.  
  
Grabbing his rucksack and swinging it over his shoulder – it hurts when it lands, and he doesn’t bother to suppress the wince – he pushes his way through the crowd at the bar to where Hannah, dark hair tied back as always, is standing in front of the concierge’s desk, handing room keys out to a pair of girls who run up the stairs, matching tattoos on their wrists.  
  
“One room, please,” he asks, giving up on disguising his voice because this is Hannah, she’s known him since he was a baby (there’s pictures of her beaming as she holds him, and chases him round the garden, and throws him up in the air while he laughs), there’s no way he’s going to fool her. “I’ll pay daily.”  
  
She looks at him strangely: intently, sadly, and with a kind of pity he recognises all too well. It stirs something in his stomach, a kind of anger, hot and fierce and utterly, completely resentful; he half wants to ask her ‘what?’, demand what she’s looking at, that he doesn’t need her compassion, however well-meaning it is.  
  
“Of course,” she says, before he can even open his mouth, and her tone is brisk, professional, and it chafes a little. It’s what he expected, he reminds himself, but he can’t quite shake the voice in the back of his mind which whispers that he shouldn’t have come, this was why he shouldn’t have come…  
  
“I’ll expect payment every morning before ten for the evening after; five galleons, three sickles for the first night, and three galleons, eight sickles for ever night afterwards,” she continues, handing him the key and waiting as he fumbles for the right coins, his English purse having fallen right to the back of his bag. “Breakfast’s free, but lunch and dinner aren’t. Door’s unlocked until one weekdays, five weekends; after that you’ll need to sign your key out before you go to get back in.”  
  
He’s frozen for a moment – he should ask her not to say anything, his mind insists, to keep it from his parents, from his family, until he can work out what to do, knows that he even can do anything and isn’t just going to book himself onto the first Portkey back to Switzerland, but the words just won’t come out – the key in one hand, when a voice calls from behind him,  
  
“Hey, Hannah, how about some service over here? We’ve been waiting for nearly three minutes!”  
  
It’s a voice he knows well, too well, and he makes for the stairs, dropping the change on the floor, squatting hastily to pick them up, fingers scrabbling on the wood. He can’t be seen, just can’t be seen… not yet, he’s not ready, he’s not prepared for this… it’s too soon…  
  
“James?” Uncle George’s voice is thunderstruck, though quiet enough that it’s swallowed by the din of the pub, waves of noise crashing over the three of them, stuck in some kind of terrible photo.  
  
He can’t turn to see his uncle, can’t even begin to think of what he’d say, so he does the only thing he can do: flee silently round the concierge and up the stairs to the second floor, slamming the door and locking it behind him as soon as he’s inside. It’s a barrier, then, solid and real and magical all in one, between him and his family, and it means he has his own space now, even if it’s not really his.  
  
With space and the privacy it comes with, he can fling himself onto the bed, bury himself in flicking idly through ‘À Rebours’, a birthday present three years before from Anatole, and try to pretend that in the morning, there won’t be a magazine article with his name in the title, that there won’t be family members waiting for him outside the door with questions and worries and angry, happy faces.  
  
What, he wonders, when his breathing has softened and his heartbeat slowed, is he doing here? He doesn’t belong here, not in London, and even so soon after he’s arrived he feels it so keenly.  
  
(The truth is that he is being brave and cowardly all at once, coming home because it is both hard and easy in equal measure, and perhaps, just perhaps, he has grown up enough to admit that it is both, and has less to do with them and with himself.  
  
Perhaps, on the other hand, he is just finally sick of the loneliness, and doesn’t know where else to go.  
  
Whatever the reason, he’s here, and he wants nothing more than to wake up in Switzerland, free and safe and content in lonely, quiet privacy.)

* * *

 **A/N:** My first ever proper foray into Next Gen, complete with OCs! Also written as an adaptation of _The Picture of Dorian Gray_ by Oscar Wilde, so any themes/motifs/references you recognise belong to him entirely.  
  
_À Rebours_ is a 19th century French novel by Joris-Karl Huysmans, and therefore is also not mine.


	2. Pink Silk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> GREENGRASS RETIRES FROM SPORT

Pink Silk  
  
Water surrounds them, enveloping their whole body until they are completely submerged, hair floating eerily about their head like a kind of distorted, tilted halo, the gilt wearing off it; gold worn down to silver. Fading, they think absently, fading fast – would there be any of the original colour left, anything still there to burnish at the end of it?  
  
How morbid, they sigh, a small stream of bubbles – oxygen, life-giving – floating out of their mouth and off, off away into the rest of the bath.  
  
Watching the bubbles drift away, one after another, heading up to the surface, to freedom, they feel themselves relax; there’s something so soothing about the patience of luxury, about having all the time in the world to lie back, warm and loose-limbed, close their eyes and studiously not think about anything at all. A kind of reward, perhaps, a reminder that they haven’t quite lost everything – there are things left in the world for them.  
  
They are healthy. They are safe. They are loved. Aren’t those the important things?  
  
The problem is that when you have the important things, the obvious things, it’s so difficult not to want more – and once you had had more, but had lost it, how could you not want it back? They lost so much in one blow, so much so that the pain itself is almost insignificant and utterly irrelevant. It sears sometimes, aching with a constant tremor they can’t get rid of, but the despair, the sheer terror and heartache when they look at the future and see nothing…  
  
That, now that cuts through the bone to their very soul.  
  
How are you meant to move on from that? Are you ever meant to? Or are you supposed to just be satisfied in life, never entirely fulfilled, never as happy as you know you can be?  
  
They don’t know. No one else seems to know either.  
  
Pushing upwards, they turn onto their back, wet hair, long and light, plastering across the side of their face, and breathe out, the sound echoing softly in the bathroom, bouncing off windows and walls and silver-edged mirrors.  
  
“Cato?” a voice calls from outside, accompanied by a hard knock on the door. “You in there? Do you need any help?”  
  
“One minute!” they shoot back, reaching a hand out over the edge to scramble for their wand, fingers grappling and rolling and then snatching. With a swish, the bath begins to drain itself, gently setting them down on the small step inside it (the last remnants of its previous incarnation as a Jacuzzi), and they can just stretch out an arm and grab a towel.  
  
“Okay, I’m good!”  
  
“Thank god,” Scorpius grins at them as he walks over, shirt sleeves rolled up as always, still dressed in his lime green Healer’s robes, the door swinging almost shut behind him. “I’m not in the mood to be scarred for life today.”  
  
Cato doesn’t bother to reply, too busy setting their teeth and already tensing their muscles in preparation for what is about to happen. Today is the last day – they promised themselves that when the Healer gave them the estimate what seems like a lifetime ago – they won’t have help, not to do something as simple as this.  
  
“Are you sure?” Scorpius murmurs, a worried frown creasing his brow delicately, and for a moment his mother’s face, lined and blue-eyed, flashed on top of his. “You don’t have to if you don’t think you can. It’s not a bad thing.”  
  
“I can,” they insist, though the rest of it went unspoken. I want to. I need to. I have to.  
  
They know from the look on his face that Scorpius doesn’t believe them – cynic that he is, he always advises caution, always advises never rushing, never hurrying. Medicine is Science, exact and calculating, he would say, you can’t push Science because you want it to go faster. It doesn’t work like that.  
  
Although, if they’re being flippant, they’re giving it a damn good go.  
  
Pressing the heels of their palms into the edge of the bath, towel pinned in place by a handy charm, they take a deep breath, focusing on lifting up and out of their ribcage, imagining themselves standing again, on two feet, firm and steady, and push. Knees creak, their back screams, their eyes screw shut, but they do it.  
  
They’re standing unaided. Half the battle won.  
  
Their right knee wobbles, a shooting pain glancing up the cruciate ligament, setting the joint on fire. Raising it, they grip Scorpius’ proffered arm (that isn’t giving in, isn’t failing, they tell themselves firmly), and step, their left foot joining their right foot in a flash, just as their right knee crumbles, and Scorpius’ arm shoots about their waist.  
  
“Thanks,” they mutter, concentrating too much on keeping their voice even and their stinging eyes from overflowing to really feel bad about it – that, they know, will come later.  
  
“Anytime,” Scorpius tells them, supporting them carefully out of the bathroom, careful not to put pressure on the base of their spine, timing his steps perfectly so they match with theirs, limp included, trying to take as much weight as possible.  
  
Outside the bathroom – the air inside it is hot and muggy now they’re out of the bath and cooling down, water evaporating off their skin in waves – it’s cold and they shiver, their toes sinking into the thick, plush carpet in a way they’d have loved before, but now just makes their steps harder, bigger, more jarring to take. Their right leg is beginning to feel a bit like a dead weight, something just waiting to be snipped and cast away, left adrift in the sea of caramel brown behind them.  
  
Their room, unhelpfully, is at the end of the corridor, long and thin and lined on either side by pairs of opposing maple doors. There’s nothing to mark that it’s the only room on the corridor to be inhabited, only that it has the dubious honour of being framed on either side by ugly pictures of gardens: in one, a laburnum in flower flutters in a gentle breeze, a forest of daisies at its feet; in the other, a swallow chirps and rustles his wings in an ivy-wrought hollow.  
  
Beautiful, Cato has always thought, but so very boring.  
  
Eventually, they reach it – a minute’s journey morphed into at least two, possibly three – and Cato gratefully collapses on the bed the moment they get inside, feeling the towel slip from around their waist and hearing Scorpius swear in a tone half-disgusted, half-long-suffering.  
  
“Put some clothes on,” Scorpius instructs, a creak suggesting he’d ensconced himself in the window-seat again – Cato’s favourite chair, with a view of the fake pond (which had before been a real pond, before their father had decided to expand it), and the small gaggle of ducks which live there.  
  
If you’re lucky, sometimes the swan would glide out, but not often.  
  
“Yes, mother,” Cato groans into the mattress, rolling onto their back and giving their wand an idle flick, catching the underwear it flings at them with relative ease. Slipping them on is harder than it seems while lying on a bed and not really capable of wriggling, but they manage quicker than they had done before.  
  
Socks follow, and then they hesitate.  
  
Days like this are hard, and it’s mostly the simple things, the littlest things which get them. What should they wear? How do they want to look? What are they feeling most like now; what would they be feeling most like later?  
  
Just an extra boatload of questions on top of the normal worries – would it suit the place, the event, would it look good, would it clash with anything, would it be a hit or a miss with the general public, which sponsor do they need to appease this evening…  
  
Well, they suppose they can rule that last one out. They aren’t even sure if they have any sponsors any more.  
  
Hovering, wand poised to summon, they stare at their wardrobe, arranged neatly along the colour spectrum, and then flick.   
  
They are they today, and that is that.  
  
Soft pink clothes land on the bed, a pile of silk, shimmering under the light, followed by a white shirt. Normally they wouldn’t, but this time they have to – they’ll need the supports this evening, the charms woven into them and pressing into their skin to make sure they don’t collapse. There’s not any need to advertise them, though, especially not when they’re fantastically horrible-looking things to wear, somehow managing to be garish and plain at the same time.  
  
They supposed it’s the fact that they’re orange, really, and almost fluorescent.  
  
Once they’re dressed, they stood up, their spine tingling as the magic in the supports lock in place, keeping them steady, knee and back encased in angora-lined steel, protective and gentle. It won’t be quite so comfortable at the end of the evening, the angora sensation slipping as the pain returns, but they figure they could live with that for a little fun.  
  
“Okay, what time are we meeting everyone?” they ask, absently arranging their hair back over their shoulders, weaving strands into a fishtail plait with a twirl of their wand.  
  
“Half eleven, so no rush,” Scorpius replies, glancing up. “You look good. Need anything else?”  
  
Cato knows exactly what Scorpius is offering – the numbing potions, addictive and strong, are locked carefully away in their dad’s study downstairs, the keys entrusted to their mother and Scorpius – and it’s tempting, it really is, but they shake their head. If they’re going to move on from this, try and find a way past this, that means no potions when the Healers say it’s time.  
  
And, you know, it’s time.

* * *

_Date: 18th July 2026_   
  
_Healer Name: Suggitt, Miruna (Senior Consultant, Physical Damage)_   
  
_Patient Name: Greengrass, Cato Jovian_   
  
_Date of Birth: 16th April 2002_   
  
_Diagnosis: Cruciate ligament tear to the right knee; multiple spinal ligament strains; four compression-torsion-translational fractures to the spine (lumbar)_   
  
_Preliminary Notes: The patient was admitted unconscious, having been treated at the pitch by medical staff provided by the stadium services. Breathing and heart rate were normal; condition stable. Assessment at the scene suggested multiple fractures to the spine and cruciate ligament tear to the right knee, and mild concussion (the patient had been hit with a halting jinx before impact by the match referee, Mrs Anna Kowalski). No medication had been given._   
  
_Damage of the spine found after a scan to be four compression-torsion-translational fractures to the lumbar region of the spine, none impacting the central nervous system. Additional examination of the patient, and understanding of the spinal injury, revealed likely multiple spinal ligament strains resulting from the impact, though the location of such strains not wholly known – some obvious._   
  
_Examination of the patient’s knee confirmed scene diagnosis: cruciate ligament tear in the right knee. No further damage visible._   
  
_Treatment Given: Anaesthesia administered upon arrival of the patient to allow for manipulation without the patient becoming conscious._   
  
_After examination and diagnosis given and confirmed, patient set MALRAP course for the cruciate ligament tear, prescribed numbing potions (Type 4 and Type 2A, a dose every four hours) upon regaining consciousness._   
  
_Recommendations: Recommended course of action is aerial kyphoplasty surgery as soon as patient is able, pending approval of parents and patient. Rehabilitation of the spinal fractures and knee will be required; extended physiotherapy is recommended._   
  
_Patient is recommended not to play Quidditch again due to risk of further damage to the vertebrae and ligament, leading to potential death or permanent loss of mobility in the spine and leg._   
  
_Nota Bene: Surgery performed successfully on 27th July 2026; rehabilitation to begin following recovery from the operation.)_

* * *

It’s the calm before the storm, as it always is: tucked away down a corridor which runs along the side of the stadium, all glass panels and sleek metal railings, enchanted to be opaque – solid white – on the outside and transparent on the inside, with people bustling around them, double- and triple-checking that everything is in place, that everyone who needs to be there is there. Clipboards are zooming past, self-inking quills attached to them by string, notes scribbled on the parchment, checklists all ticked and struck out.  
  
The walls are bare, the brick painted white and the mortar black, but there aren’t any pictures there, nothing to look at. In the past, it had been comforting, almost, to focus on nothing, but now it’s just terrifying.  
  
Scorpius is off to one side as always, reading a Quidditch magazine he’d picked up from the entrance hall when they’d come in, and on the other side is Oliver Wood, who hasn’t managed to wipe the disappointed and sympathetic look off his face since the whole thing had started, sombre in black-based robes today rather than his usual white.  
  
Team colours: black-and-white, white-and-black; amidst it all, in soft pink, they feel like an imposter.  
  
They essentially are, now, they think.  
  
“Remember, you don’t have to answer anything you don’t want to,” Oliver reminds them quietly, watching them with a beady, knowing look. “They’ll try and press – you know how it is, you’ve done this before – but no one’s going to blame you for refusing to answer. Me and Eilidh will try to field as many of them as possible, and we’ll stop it from getting too personal, but I just want to warn you beforehand.”  
  
Cato nods once, slowly. They know interviews can be bad – two seasons ago, Holyhead Harpies’ Rehan Hussain had endured a horror of an hour fielding questions about her messy, public break-up from Kitty-Mae Carmody, and had ended up storming out of the interview halfway to tears – and they know this will be the worst they’ve ever done. Even without the journalists and the photographers, it would be the worst.  
  
“Two minutes until we go out,” Eilidh, her thin face tired and tight, passes by them, business-like as ever in a muggle skirt suit and shirt, holding a folder in one hand, the word ‘media’ and the date scrawled across the top of it. “Are you sure you’re ready?”  
  
It’s a bit of a throwaway line, over her shoulder while she finalises the details of the day, running a quick eye over the first page in the folder, but it’s as close as anyone ever gets to sympathy and warm feelings from her.  
  
“Does it matter?” they answer waspishly, trying not to think about whether or not this was a good idea, whether or not this was the right decision to make so early on – maybe something would have changed, some medical advancement, the Healer would realise she’d been wrong…  
  
Eilidh sighs, and glances up from her folder, and there’s a small, kind smile on her face.  
  
“Look, it’s hard – trust me, I know,” she begins, and there’s a personal note, a tone in her voice they’ve never heard before. It sounds strange coming from her. “If you’re not ready, we can postpone it – no one will be that surprised or bothered. It’s a non-story; no point in running it. It’s up to you.”  
  
“No, no, I – I should do this now,” they swallow, the words sounding more confident than they feel – but isn’t that always the way? “It’s not as though there’s going to be a different response in a week’s time – or even a month.”  
  
She nods, the smile flickering brighter for a moment before vanishing.  
  
“Right, I’ll go in first, you and Oliver follow – as always, okay?” she tells them, as though they don’t know, haven’t done this a hundred times before, but they murmur ‘sure’ all the same.  
  
“Hey,” Oliver presses a hand on their shoulder just as Eilidh grasps the handle of the door and it turns, the buzz from beyond turning into a roar and the camera flashes beginning to start up, silver and yellow-white and blinding. “One more thing – if they ask you what you’re going to do afterwards, say you don’t know. It’ll be easier in the long run, trust me.”  
  
They don’t have time to say anything, as then they’re stepping through, Oliver and a security wizard following.  
  
The light in the room is strobing, flashes going off everywhere, constant and bright, an assault which is made all the more eerie by the silence which falls as they all sit down, Cato in the middle, flanked by Eilidh and Oliver.  
  
They’ve never sat in the middle before; it only makes them all the more nervous, feel all the more that this was a mistake, such a mistake…  
  
On the desk in front of them is a sheaf of parchment, the statement they’d carefully prepared with the club inked out on it in neat, block capitals, the black ink shining in the light. It looks stark, as though the contrast is too high, and the letters soften, their edges fading and spreading until they run into each other, a mess of black ink spotted across cream. Somehow, it seems as though the letters are buzzing, a mass of white noise – clicks and whirrs and scratches – filtering in from beyond the dais they’re sat at.  
  
They blink, then, and the world clears.  
  
Distantly, they hear their own voice, smooth and steady, reading out the words on the page, one by one by one, with a confidence they don’t feel and a blunt sort of acceptance. It sounds removed, feels removed, like they’ve slipped inside their own body, feeling the undulations of their throat as they speak, the ripples in their vocal chords with each breath, and the gentle rise and fall of their chest.  
  
Then they’re done, their last words spoken. Eilidh and Oliver take their turns to speak, but everything they say fades into the background, leaving Cato cocooned in silence and numb. The world seems to be moving too fast, spinning just that second quicker to leave them dizzy, nausea beginning to swirl in their stomach.  
  
There are no questions – well, none directed at them, at least – and they escape outside the room as soon as they can, heading down the corridors which have been most of their life for the last two years, and round, through the belly of the stadium. They pass the locker rooms, the coach’s office, the broom repair workshop, the ice baths and the sauna, the doctor’s office and the physio’s room; portraits of squads, photographs of players mid-flight, posters and articles celebrating famous wins, famous faces, all zoom by on the walls – and everywhere, black and white, white and black, and a magpie in flight, wings outstretched.  
  
“Hey,” Scorpius has been following them the whole time, two metres behind, and when Cato looks at him, his Healer’s mask is fixed firmly on his face: perfectly composed, the right amount of sincere concern in his eyes.  
  
It makes them want to cry.  
  
“I’m okay,” they reply, the words automatic – they knew the question even before it was asked, and doesn’t that say everything about how people are overusing it? Always asking, always endlessly asking; they’re never sure what they expect them to say. “I just… I dunno.”  
  
On the wall opposite them a portrait of Lennox Campbell smiles thinly from where he’s lazing next to a podium, the number seven emblazoned on a poster on the wall behind it, the Golden Quaffle award resting on it glinting in the sunlight dotted down from the top-left corner. Brown hair windswept, Campbell’s wearing the uniform of the team of 1999, who won the League and then the European Cup too for good measure. There’s a plaque underneath, and Cato knows what it’d read if they looked at it: Lennox Campbell was presented with the Player of the Year Award 1999 from the International Quidditch Association.  
  
Only three missed catches, in the British and European Cup combined: a world record.  
  
It never mattered that the pundits all claimed Cato would be the one to beat that record – it didn’t matter that they’d come close, already (four missed catches in their break-out season with Bigonville, five last season, and only one in the run-up to the injury). It didn’t matter that they would have, that they’d had only three more matches to go before they’d have done it officially; that they’d have done it better, by playing every League match and every Cup match.  
  
Really, it didn’t; not at all.  
  
They shift, and a bolt, hot and fierce and blazing, shoots up through their knee, setting their spine on fire as it goes, and they bite their lip hard, letting out a soft, strained noise.  
  
Scorpius is there in a flash, arm grabbing their waist and it helps a little, but not much: there’s nothing Scorpius can do about it, but the bones of his arm press against the realigned vertebrae, against the healed muscles and tendons and flesh, and it all aches and whines and cries again. He’s calm and patient, though, guiding them out with a gentle sort of presence which only makes Cato feel worse.  
  
The Healer is round that evening, measuring out a dose of Sleeping Potion, while Scorpius and their mother listen in the background, rapt with attention and nodding gravely.  
  
Honey-coloured, it tastes sweet and silky on their tongue, sliding down all too easily, and when they close their eyes against the world, it fills the rest of their senses completely. They’re warm and comfortable, the roar in their body dying down to flickers and twinges as they move, tugging the duvet tight around them.  
  
They know it’s a defeat, really, to resort back to potions again, but it’s a blissful, saccharine defeat, so easy to give in to.

* * *

**A/N:** for those of you who are football/soccer fans (and even if you're not), the Golden Quaffle award is a (bad :P) nod to the Ballon d'Or, which is a prize awarded to the best footballer in the world every year.


End file.
